No Start!! Bad Ground? Bad Battery? Bad Starter? Magic?

[TurboJuice]

Ok, I am in need of some direction. There are a lot of variables here, but please give me your best guess as to what's wrong and what to try next.

3yr old optima red top battery - mounted in the trunk
Brand new autozone / duralast starter
Brand new autozone / duralast 90A alternator
Just regrounded and added additional ground to negative battery terminal


Now the issue is sometimes the car starts and sometimes it doesnt.
Here is what happened last night. I fire the car up after work for a cruise and it starts no problem. Cruise for an hour and i stall it at an intersection. I try to start it and it just clicks. Just one solid click and nothing at all.

I fiddle for 10 minutes before someone offers to push me over. She we push it over and and i figure what thge hell lets try and jump it. Hook up and the jumpers and vroom!

So limp it home and actually stalled it again! This time for some reason it decided to fire up.

I get in the garage, shut it off, then try to start again and nothing. Just a click. I crank it a bunch of time and it just clicks once everytime. Then all of a sudden it fires over. I shut it off again and then it wont start.

I let the car sit in the garage for 2 hours and when i came back out it fired up 4 times in a row with no hesitation.


When i got in the garage i took some voltages.
Battery voltage with the car on is 13.8
Alt voltage with the car on is 14.0
My turbo time on the dash reads 13.0

With the car off voltage at the battery is 12.2
Turbo timer reads 11.8


I am stumped. I thought because i jumped the car, the battery was tired. But i cranked the hell out of the battery in my garage(trying to drain it). But then i let the car sit and it fired up.



I have no idea, Do those voltages look OK? Maybe a bad starter?
Thanks for reading this far.

[Lazer382]

From those voltages I doubt the battery is a problem. Since the car is running fine too I think we can rule out a lack of fuel/spark.

Sounds like the problem is the starter. That one solid click you hear is the relay trying to power the starter but the starter doing nothing. If it had cranked then the issue would be something else.

Good luck.

[bmxcolorado]

Starter solenoid or starter. All I can think of.

[TurboJuice]

My mechanic is telling me that my battery in the trunk could be an issue. He says I am losing AMPs / gaining resistance because the battery is in the trunk. true / False

[Lazer382]

Originally Posted by TurboJuice

My mechanic is telling me that my battery in the trunk could be an issue. He says I am losing AMPs / gaining resistance because the battery is in the trunk. true / False

Although partially true, I really doubt this is the problem. Still think starter / starter solenoid.

[talonryder95]

Okay , my battery is in the trunk and never, ever had an slow crank or problem. What i do wonder tho is what size wiring do you have to run from the battery to the fuse box. Also what size cable and how many cables and where do they go for the grounds in the trunk and under the hood?

Sounds like it should be an starter/solenoid problem but could be an small factor with your wiring and fuse/connections.

I have dual 0 gauge grounds in trunk and under hood.Have dual 0 gauge power going to an splitter box and then got a 4 ga going to the fuse box.

[TurboJuice]

I have one 0 gauge + wire from the battery to the stock cluster under the hood.

I have one 0 gauge - from the battery to a paintless tab in the trunk
One 6 gauge - from the battery to a rear seat belt bolt hole, sanded down

one 6 gauge from the trans to the firewall

[talonryder95]

sounds like your battery in the trunk is fine. 0 gauge is plenty to run the power up there. By means of under the hood, as long as your original grounds are still there and the one that use to run to the battery you grounded to the firewall, i dont see that an problem.

Im sure most people here are going to point you toward your starter/solenoid combo. Your battery seems to be at an good voltage and so does your alternator. I read that when you did have the car able to start, the battery had plenty of power to keep cranking on its own so it still has its cranking amps....

I think the last thing you could try to do is when the car doesnt want to start, try to use an set of jumper cables to connect to both strut towers and connect to the engine and trans. See if its for some reason an bad grounding issue first then look at the starter. The jumper cables will just be both used for grounding- no/not positve.

[Gamble]

Originally Posted by TurboJuice

My mechanic is telling me that my battery in the trunk could be an issue. He says I am losing AMPs / gaining resistance because the battery is in the trunk. true / False

While this is true it's not enough to hardly make a difference, unless you were using like a 10g wire.
And your mechanic is who?!?

[TurboJuice]

Originally Posted by Gamble

While this is true it's not enough to hardly make a difference, unless you were using like a 10g wire.
And your mechanic is who?!?

Devin really hates my battery being in the trunk for some reason.

[Gamble]

Originally Posted by TurboJuice

Devin really hates my battery being in the trunk for some reason.

Take the resistance of the short stock wire and the wire you have in there now, there won't be that much of a difference.

[TurboJuice]

Originally Posted by Gamble

Take the resistance of the short stock wire and the wire you have in there now, there won't be that much of a difference.

yea, I am really leaning towards the starter being junk.

The only thing holding me back, is why would the starter not turn the car over on its own, but then with the added boost of jumper cables, be able to start?

The throw in the starts when cold but no start(unless jumped) when hot.

Is there somthing internally in the starter that would explain this?

Too many variables to this damn equation.

[GotARed]

Matt, We had that exact same problem with the teal 1g that we bought from Devin last winter.

The battery is in the stock location.

It ended up being the starter, we changed in and it never happened again!

[GotARed]

Originally Posted by TurboJuice

yea, I am really leaning towards the starter being junk.

The only thing holding me back, is why would the starter not turn the car over on its own, but then with the added boost of jumper cables, be able to start?

The throw in the starts when cold but no start(unless jumped) when hot.

Is there somthing internally in the starter that would explain this?

Too many variables to this damn equation.

You just got lucky and it happened to want to work the same time that you hooked the cables up.

[Gamble]

I had the same issue with my honda. It ended up being the key ignition.